{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/the-valley-of-dry-bones",
 "title": "The Valley of Dry Bones",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume IV",
 "book_slug": "collected-works-iv",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 1,
 "container": "Shapes of Clay",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1910,
  "venue": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume IV (1910)",
  "note": "Taken from Volume IV of the Neale collected edition (copyright 1910). That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume's own preface speaks of the verses republished in this volume and the next, and which newspaper or earlier book printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof04bierrich"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/ambrose-bierce_poetry",
  "file": "shapes-of-clay.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4793",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12658",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12977",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15599",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof04bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof05bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof08bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/shapesofclay00bier",
   "https://archive.org/details/blackbeetlesinam00bier",
   "https://archive.org/details/literarycalifor05mighgoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/cali07webb"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 32,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 52,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "With crow bones all the land is white,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the gates of morn to the gates of night.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Picked clean, they lie on the cumbered ground,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the politician’s paunch is round;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And he strokes it down and across as he sings:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“I’ve eaten my fill of the legs and wings,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The neck, the back, the pontifical nose,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Breast, belly and gizzard, for everything goes.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The meat that’s dark (and there’s none that’s white)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Exceeded the need of my appetite,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But I’ve bravely stuck to the needful work",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That a hungry domestic hog would shirk.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’ve eaten the fowl that the Fates commend",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To reluctant lips of the People’s Friend.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rank unspeakably, bitter as gall,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is the bird, but I’ve eaten it, feathers and all.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’m a dutiful statesman, I am, although",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I really don’t like a diet of crow.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So I’ve dined all alone in a furtive way,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But my platter I’ve cleaned every blessed day.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They say that I bolt; so I do⁠—my bird;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They say that I sulk, but they’ve widely erred!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O Lord! if my enemies only knew",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How I’m full to the throat with the corvic stew",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They’d open their ears to hear me profess",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The faith compelled by the corvic stress,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(For, alas! necessity knows no law)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the heavenly caucus⁠—‘Caw! Caw! Caw!’ ”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And that ornithanthropical person tried",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By flapping his arms on the air to ride;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But I knew by the way that he clacked his bill",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He was just the poor, featherless biped, Dave Hill.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}